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38°52′58.3464″N 77°0′27.0576″W / 38.882874000°N 77.007516000°W / 38.882874000; -77.007516000

The Capitol Power Plant is a power plant which provides steam and cooled water for the United States Capitol and other buildings in the Capitol Complex. Though it was originally built to supply the Capitol complex with electricity, the plant has not produced electricity for the Capitol since 1952. This duty is handled by the power grid which serves the rest of metropolitan Washington. The plant has been serving the Capitol since 1910 and is under the administration of the Architect of the Capitol (see 2 U.S.C. § 2162) The power plant was constructed under the terms of an act of Congress passed on 28 April 1904. The Capitol Power Plant burned 17,108 tons of coal in 2006, producing about 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Controversy

Senators from coal mining states blocked a proposal in 2000 to use cleaner fuel for the plant. Senators Mitch McConnell (Republican of Kentucky) and Robert Byrd (Democrat of West Virginia), both from coal mining states, used their influence as two of the Senate's most senior members to block this proposal. In May 2007, CNN reported that two companies, International Resources Inc. and the Kanawha Eagle mine, have a contract to supply a combined 40,000 tons of coal to the plant over the next two years. The companies have given a combined $26,300 to the McConnell and Byrd campaigns for the 2006 election.

In June 2007, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced the "Greening the Capitol" initiative. The initiative's goal is to make the Capitol carbon neutral, and the power plant is a major obstacle to achieving this objective. In November 2007, Daniel Beard, the House's Chief Administrative Officer, announced that he would purchase $89,000 worth of carbon offsets for 30,000 tons of carbon emissions. Beard made the purchase from the Chicago Climate Exchange. On February 28, 2009, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter to the Architect of the Capitol asking him to create a plan to switch the power plant entirely to natural gas by the end of 2009. This letter came just three days before the scheduled protest, which organizers said would happen anyway.

Health impacts

Residents of the Capitol Hill neighborhood interviewed the Architect of the Capitol about the plant in 2006. They were informed that the only way to optimizing the plant’s efficiency was to rebuild it. This however, requires an act of Congress.

Based on a May 17, 2002 briefing before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee by Harvard’s Dr. Jonathan Levy, the Clean Air Task Force published results of a study undertaken by a team of researchers from Harvard School of Public Health to, in part, estimate the health risks of five power plants in the Metropolitan Washington D.C. area. In the study, researchers estimated that over 250 premature deaths per year are associated with fine particulate matter air pollution from five power plants in Washington D.C., Maryland and Virginia. These plants are: Benning, Chalk Point, Dickerson, Possum Point and Potomac River. The Capitol Power Plant was not included in the study. Disadvantaged groups were found to be especially vulnerable to air pollution; while only 25 percent of the population studied has less than a high school education this group suffers approximately half of the mortality attributed to the plants.

A separate study by the Clean Air Task Force ranked the Washington Metropolitan Area (population: 5,306,565) fifth among U.S. metropolitan areas in power plant health impacts. Within the Washington Metropolitan Area, the city of Washington, D.C. has a population of 588,292, with that number rising to a million during the workweek. The study estimates that power plant emissions in the Washington Metropolitan Area as a whole produce 515 annual deaths, 524 hospital admissions, and 851 heart attacks.

Emissions

Table 1: Summary of Point Source Emissions: District of Columbia in 2002 (Tons)

Particulates

For a plant its size (roughly 1/100th the size of the typical 500 MW power plant), the the Capitol Power Plant produces a remarkably high quantity of the type of particulate matter (PM2.5) most closely associated with human health effects. As shown in Table 1, in 2002, the plant emitted a full 65 percent of the PM2.5 emitted in the District of Columbia.

Particle pollution, also called particulate matter or PM, is one of six "criteria pollutants" (PM, lead, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and ozone) regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. PM is a complex mixture of extremely small particles and liquid droplets in the air. When breathed in, these particles can reach the deepest regions of the lungs. Exposure to particle pollution is linked to a variety of significant health problems, ranging from aggravated asthma to premature death in people with heart and lung disease. Particle pollution also is the main cause of visibility impairment in the nation’s cities and national parks. Fine particles (PM2.5) are 2.5 micrometers in diameter and smaller; and inhaleable coarse particles (PM10) are smaller than 10 micrometers and larger than 2.5 micrometers.

In 2006, EPA tightened the 24-hour fine particle standard from 65 micrograms per cubic meter to 35 micrograms per cubic meter, while leaving the annual fine particle unchanged. EPA retained the annual fine particle standard at 15 micrograms per cubic meter. EPA retained the pre-existing 24-hour PM10 standard of 150 micrograms per cubic meter. Due to a lack of evidence linking health problems to long-term exposure to coarse particle pollution, the Agency revoke the annual PM10 standard.

Even before the EPA tightened the fine particular standard, Washington, D.C. was a "non-attainment" area.

March 2, 2009 Protest

In December 2008, a coalition of organizations announced a non-violent civil disobedience action at the Capitol Power Plant to be held on March 2, 2009. This date coincides with the annual Power Shift youth summit on climate change. Several thousand people attended. The global warming protests were hampered by the heaviest snowfall of the year, in which 15 cm of snow blanketed Washington.

• protesters at Capitol
• protesters at Capitol Power Plant

References

1. Reliance on Coal Sullies 'Green the Capitol' Effort - washingtonpost.com
2. ^ Effort to 'green' U.S. Capitol complicated by coal - CNN.com
3. Greening the Capitol
4. Capitol to Buy Offsets in Bid to Go Green - washingtonpost.com
5. Capitol Power Plant Should Switch to 100 Percent Natural Gas
6. Anti-coal campaign gets some good news, but battle is far from won
7. "The Capitol Power Plant." Hill Rag January 2006.
8. "Health Impacts of Air Pollution from Washington, D.C. Power Plants," Clean Air Task Force, May 2002
9. Dirty Air, Dirty Power: Mortality and Health Damage Due to Air Pollution from Power Plants, Conrad G. Schneider, Abt Associates, June 2004, sponsored by Clean Air Task Force; Synopsis
10. Base Year 2002 Emissions Inventory Document for Washington, DC-MD-VA Annual PM2.5 NAA_12.14.07, Attachment A1, page 2, "Summary of Point Source Emissions: District of Columbia," Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, Air Quality Files
11. ^ "PM Standards Revision - 2006," U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
12. Ted Nace, "Mean, old, and dirty: Climate youth activists target the Capitol Power Plant," Gristmill, December 24, 2008
13. "Coal to action," Gristmill, December 10, 2008
14. Ted Nace, "Mean, old, and dirty: Climate youth activists target the Capitol Power Plant," Gristmill, December 24, 2008
15. Capitol Climate Action action guidelines
17. "Big chill buries global warming protest", The Australian, March 04, 2009 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
18. Abrams, Joseph (March 02, 2009), "Out With A Shiver: Global Warming Protest Frozen Out by Massive Snowfall", FoxNews {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External Links

• Capitol Complex Overview via the Architect of the Capitol
• 2 U.S.C. § 2162, Statute for the Capitol Power Plant via the Cornell Law School
• "Capitol Power Plant," SourceWatch
• Capitol Climate Action
• "District of Columbia and coal," SourceWatch

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